


Auld Lang Syne

by teenagewristband



Category: Common Law
Genre: Common Law Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5071720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenagewristband/pseuds/teenagewristband
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the kink_meme - Travis and Wes fumble into a relationship. Wes is cautious because he knows Travis' track record. He gives Travis lots of space, doesn't interfere when he flirts with women and tries desperately to deny how much he's falling in love. Travis is torn between commitment-phobic panic over his growing feelings and annoyance over Wes' lack of trust. </p>
<p>They fuck and they argue and it seems like that's all they do. </p>
<p>One day things come to a head and Travis decides to do what Wes seems to be goading him into: he ends it. Wes, despite having expected this, is completely heartbroken. They are unable to function as a team and Wes joins the FBI while Travis bums around Homicide before quitting to open a private investigation business. </p>
<p>Years later, they cross paths over a case and both realize their role in ruining the best thing of their lives. </p>
<p>Happy ending or not, make me cry anon!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auld Lang Syne

**Author's Note:**

> Making my way through the kink_meme so this was inspired by the prompt summarized above. Inspired by because I might not have hit all of what was requested.

Travis doesn't bother to cover up. Sated, he stretches his arms behind his head as his eyes track his partner's studied movements. Somehow, even though Travis' perception was that they were ripping each others' clothes off, Wes' suit is laid neatly over a chair near the bed. He re-dresses carefully in each piece, in the same way Travis knows he must do every morning for work. It's three a.m. and they've just had, in Travis' opinion, the most classic of booty calls. 

“You could stay.”

Wes re-fastens his watch band without looking at Travis. 

“When's the last time you dusted in here?”

“You weren't so interested in dusting an hour ago.” 

A small smile sketches across the dishwater blond's face.

“Goodnight Travis.”

“Goodnight Wes.”

Marks has watched a lot of fine asses leave his place. His partner's is by far the finest. Usually he enjoys it, gives him a little something for the rest of the night once his hook up is gone. But as he watches Wes' specific brand of fine ass walk away, something twinges. He won't be so melodramatic as to say in his heart, but it's definitely in the chest area. He will see Wes at the precinct in just a few hours. Yet a twinge. He wants Wes to stay. 

He wonders what it would be like to roll over and see Wes' face first thing in the morning. It's not like he doesn't see his partner first thing in the morning. But first thing in the morning, across his desk in full bitch mode because of some way he was wronged in traffic or by a barista at Starbuck's, is nowhere near the same as waking up to kiss his way down the toned leanness the tailored suits hide. 

 

It's the third night this week Wes has managed to find his way to the airstream on some pretense. Although, tonight there had been barely that. He'd shown up, rearranged things around Travis' trailer until Travis slid his hand over Wes' to still it. He couldn't ask for it out loud, but Travis didn't need to hear the words. His partner was in his home after midnight and there wasn't a crime scene to be found. He had set-up Mitchell's dating profile. 

He has the password, so he knows just how many other options his tight ass partner has. It must mean something Travis thinks. Especially now that Wes , _knows_ he has options, now that Wes is moving on.

There is no flinching or pulling away when Travis tightens his grip on Wes' hand. When he inclines his head in the direction of the bed, Wes shrugs off his suit jacket. It gets easy from there. Usually he'd have something to say to Travis at this point, but tonight Wes is unusually quiet. 

“Lay back.”

He doesn't meet his eyes, his entire focus on his own hands and they slide Travis' t-shirt up inch by inch. It feels different, considered. 

Before has been enthusiastically energetic in a wham bam thank you sir kind of way. It makes Travis feel a little off balance. All that focused attention. 

“Wes.” His voice is barely more than a whisper. “Wes,” he tries again. This time blue eyes flick up from the work of his hands to meet and hold.

“Yeah, Travis. Wes' voice is also barely more than an answering whisper. There might have been something Travis was actually planning to say. It's possible he just needed a moment to process. But all he can think with Wes staring down at him is that his partner is beautiful. Impossible, beautiful.

“Kiss me,” he's finally able to whisper. For once, Wes does as requested without a fight Travis tries to spend the next couple of hours explaining to Wes with his body the things he's not saying out loud.

The pleasant,familiar ache from having Wes inside him puts Travis in a mellow headspace that can't be achieved any other way. His partner is the only one who can do this to him. Like a song on repeat, his partner takes care as he re-buttons his dress shirt. _Stay_ is on the tip of Travis' tongue, but he says nothing.

Even though the sun will be up in a couple of hours, “Goodnight Travis,” Wes says quietly as he heads for the door.

“Goodnight, Wes.”

ØØØØØØØ

When the Feds show up everything goes completely to hell. Everything. He and Wes have been sleeping together for three months when they cross paths with the FBI on the Babies case, specifically the path of Agent Kerry D'Amico.

Travis doesn't cheat. Yes, he has a reputation, earned but at worst he's a serial monogamist. Granted that might only last a couple of days, nights at a time but he doesn't overlap his partners. Usually. When they meet Agent D'Amico, sure Travis flirts a little, but Wes' whole demeanor changes like he wasn't just searching for his shoe under Travis' bed mere hours before. Like Travis doesn't have Wes shaped bruises underneath his jeans. Like the other man hasn't been leaving Travis' home later and later, barely making it back to the hotel in time to change for work. Travis had actually beat him to work that morning. In the face of the Agent's attractiveness none of that matters. Wes slips into his offended, aggrieved party, standoffish snark even though Travis hasn't touched another person in three months. It's a milestone. 

It should get better after the case. The Agent's card isn't exactly burning a hole in his pocket. Travis has no intention of doing anything with it. He just played the game this time out of spite since Wes seemed to think so little of what was happening with them. He had no trouble fulfilling the Agent's request not to mention she'd given him a card because he had no real intention of taking her up on the offer. 

For a moment, he thought his partner had done some sort of slight of hand to get the card out of his wallet. Then it fully registered that Wes had gotten his own card. And it didn't matter what the Doc said about D'Amico playing them both. 

What mattered was that in spite of everything between them, Wes would have followed through if she had allowed it. He made his intentions public, told the group. Even though the group has no idea they are having an affair, it's still humiliating. Travis had no choice then but to pull out the card Agent D'Amico had given him. Beside him Wes had gone very still. Travis is hard pressed to recall what happened in the rest of the session. If Dr. Ryan clued in that there was something else happening other than what it looked like on the surface he doesn't know. Most of the rest of that day is kind of a haze. Wes doesn't call, doesn't come over that night. Travis can't find it himself to call.

ØØØØØØØ

Wes' mouth is pursed to speak. Travis has no idea what he's going to say. Not the specifics anyway, but he knows the tone. Even before he hears it. He can tell just by the set of his features. He knows Wes' tone will be condescending or cutting or judgmental. The smirk on his face says it's probably something he spent all morning crafting. It probably will have to do with Agent D'Amico, but even if it doesn't...

The actual words don't matter anymore. He's resisted this for a while now, but the truth is this dance he and Wes are doing is unhealthy. Therapy has helped some, he doubts there are any more plate glass windows in their future, but it's been a long haul. What you say in jest is sometimes one hundred percent the truth. The relationship he and Wes have is bordering on abusive. They both deserve better. Travis can't actually see what that looks like, but it doesn't look like the expression his partner is currently wearing. Just like that a kind of peace settles over him. Just like that, he realizes it's over. Wes Mitchell is the love of his life, but Travis Marks is done. 

“No,” he says quietly before Wes can form whatever the actual words were going to be. “No,” Travis says with a finality he never thought he could muster as he shakes his head and walks away.

ØØØØØØØ

When Travis walks into the squad room there is a kind of quiet that seems out of character for his colleagues. He doesn't think he's imagining them not making eye contact. But maybe he is. He's been out of sync these last weeks. It's been a couple a couple of weeks since he's seen his partner. Quite a feat considering they have adjoined desks. He thinks Wes might be on loan to another division. He's not sure and he hasn't bothered to check.

“Marks can I speak to you a minute?” Travis has been at his desk just fifteen minutes. I guess my instincts aren't totally shot Travis thinks. 

“I don't want you to find out about this through the grapevine.”

For just a moment Travis' stomach drops. But if Wes were dead, the Captain wouldn't beat around the bush. He would just tell him. Dr. Ryan would probably be standing next to him. So he takes a deep breath tries not to clench his hands into fists and focuses on what the Captain is trying to tell him.

“The final paperwork came through this morning. Detective Wes Mitchell is now Special Agent Wes Mitchell. He's assigned to the L.A. field office.”

To say that's not what he was expecting to hear is an understatement. Travis thinks he should feel something about this news. Relief doesn't wash through him. His blood doesn't boil. He feels nothing.

Leave it to Wes to make sure to get the last word.

Turns out Agent D'Amico was in every way possible the worst thing to have happened to them. He has no doubt it was the lady Fed that put the Fed bug in Wes' ear. 

With Mitchell officially gone, the Captain won't let him work solo. Over the next weeks and months he partners with other Detectives with varying degrees of success. Once upon a time, he loved to come to work, but now...

He has an obscene amount of vacation time accrued. The minute the perp on his most recent case is deposited into the back of a squad car, Travis turns in the paperwork.

 

A week into his vacation, he's leaning against his bike, watching the sun set over the water in Santa Monica. And just like that epiphany with Wes six months ago, he has another one, sharp and clear. Without hesitation, he fishes his phone out of his jacket. When Captain Sutton answers, Detective Travis Marks expresses what a pleasure it's been to work for him, then resigns from the Los Angeles Police Department. This time he does feel relieved and maybe even a little bit happy.

ØØØØØØØ

“This gun is the same one we -”. The words stop of their own volition. No conscious thought, just one minute he's talking and the next he's not. He can feel the eyes of the team settle on his face. Wes Mitchell recovers enough presence of mind to drop his eyes back to the body at his feet so that his colleagues don't pick up what's in his line of sight.

Although he was assigned to the Los Angeles field office at the beginning of his career with the Bureau, Wes had managed to avoid contact with Travis Marks in cases that intersected the two agencies, first because he was a junior agent, and later because he was part of a detail that traveled extensively. A detail he'd volunteered for wholeheartedly. For the last six years he's spent more time on a plane than at the fairly nicely appointed apartment he has in Maryland.

He did learn in therapy. Everyone was so on his case about moving on from his ex-wife Alex, he'd made sure to employ those lessons when Travis left him. He'd cut all ties immediately, changed jobs, cut off contact. This is the first time he's seen his former partner since he became a Fed. This is the last place he expected to see him. Truthfully, after all this time he had no expectation of seeing the other man, his ex, again. 

It takes a considerable amount of will not to lift his gaze again to seek out Travis. Not just because he hasn't seem him in awhile, but because Travis looks **good**. Wes thinks even without their history, if he had looked up to see a man who looked precisely as Travis does now, in a good midnight blue suit jacket and matching pants with a crisp white button down open at the neck that gleams against his skin...He's not a man that has guys in every port, but if pressed he will admit that there have been a handful of one night stands in the last six years that might or might not have resembled Travis Marks. 

Like the preceding years, months, days hours and minutes before this one, they manage not to deal with each other directly.

ØØØØØØØ

Travis has a pretty good idea now of what's happened to his client's seventeen year old daughter. She's been missing for a month. Her parents are prepared to hear the worst, but Travis doubts very much they are prepared to hear this. He's been in the game a long while and this is a certifiable first for him. Yeah, some of the gang kids he'd come across while on the job, might be the closest to this situation, but still nothing quite like this. On the one hand, on some level he can admire what the kid has done. It took initiative, ambition and truly brass balls, or a steel plated vagina. Something. He might have been able to intervene, but it's too late now. It was already too late when she left her parent's house. And now the Feds are onto it. They're working it from the angle of the victims, but it's only a matter of time. It's only a matter of time before **figures it out.**

****

****

Wes, standing on the opposite side of the crime scene talking to his colleagues, had made Travis' step falter. Seven years. When their paths hadn't crossed at all in the year after Wes' transfer, Travis figured he would never see him again. When he'd walked away from Wes that day seven years ago, he'd known that was a possibility, but he hadn't expected the severing to be so complete. 

Once he recovered himself, he kept the other man in his peripheral as he maneuvered to get what he needed. Maintaining good relationships with his former colleagues had been paramount to building his P.I. brand. He shot the breeze with Robbery/Homicide Detective Kim who was in the Academy class after his and Wes' for a few minutes before Kim dropped the bit of information that confirmed Travis' theory. 

When he walked away from the crime scene without looking back, Travis gave himself a little mental pat on the back. 

The hard news he has to share with his client can wait until tomorrow morning when their meeting is scheduled. They can have one more night living with some hope, because when he meets with them all of it will be wiped away. His notes need to be meticulous. Their daughter is not coming back. 

Time slips by him as he works on the report. When the buzzer at the front entrance to his office building goes off, he's startled to find that's it's almost eight in the evening which would explain the twinges of hunger he's been feeling. Checking the monitor for the camera mounted over the front entrance, he's surprised again. 

It's not exactly a blur, but Travis does go from clothed to partially naked and bent over his desk in a matter of what seems like minutes. It was more time than that he knows. Wes had stalked into his office like a well dressed predator. Travis had shot up from behind his desk as soon as the door to his office was flung open. He tracked as Wes stalked around the side of the desk, not all the way into his personal space, but close enough to cut Travis off from making any significant movement away. 

And then Travis' partner had just looked at him. Like he was making up for all the ignoring both of them had done at the crime scene earlier. Like he wanted to devour the man who walked away from him seven years prior. Then whatever remaining space there had been was obliterated. Wes was so deep in his ex's personal space all he could do was back against the edge of his desk. 

Shaking hands unbuttoned his dress shirt, made quick work of his trousers and then came the blur. The pleasure and memory of being touched, known that deeply by only one person. The focus even more intense than his skin remembered. It wasn't something he'd woken up that morning expecting. There had been no time to build a defense. 

****

ØØØØØØØ

“It's me.”

The call is wholly unexpected. It crosses Travis' mind to simply push the end button. What happened in his office only a few hours before, is like an open wound. The ghost of Wes' touch everywhere. He doubts whatever's about to come at him from the other end of the phone is going to make it better. His ex hadn't said a word to him during the entire encounter.

“Hey.”

“Can you...”

The line goes so quiet it's like the other man has hung up, but Travis can hear it. The breathing, uneven over the line. 

“What is it Wes? What's wrong?” 

“I'm sorry. Can I see you again? Now?”

Travis hates the reflex that puts 'okay' on the tip of his tongue before his mind can parse the request. He's on the other side of the door, keys in hand, headed to the parking garage in the very next moment. Fortunately nothing is happening at Dodger Stadium or the Staples Center so the traffic to the downtown condo address Wes gave him goes fairly quickly. Travis only speeds a little bit. 

At the front entrance, he punches in the code Wes repeated to him three times. The door to the unit is open when he gets to it. He finds Wes in sock feet just sort of hovering in the living room. 

“This is pretty fancy.”

Eyes moving restlessly around the room, Wes nods his head in agreement.

“Yeah, the Bureau decided it was more cost effective, secure to buy condos and bunk in as many agents as they could when necessary.”

Travis can't help but look around for other agents.

“The rest of my team flew back this afternoon,” Wes says quietly.

Wes making a beeline for his office the minute his team was wheels up might have sparked a sense of satisfaction, if he hadn't been left alone with his pants around his ankles right afterwards. Everything they did in his office earlier still thrums through him. The back of his neck still tingles where Wes held on a little too tight. His hips are a little sore where Wes gripped when he first backed him into the edge of the desk. He'd been able to sublimate it by working. Not now.

“What's this about?” His ex motions for him to have seat on an expensive looking leather couch. After taking up a position on one end, without hesitation Wes sits right beside him. Close enough that their thighs brush. The urge to splay his fingers against Wes' knee, draw him even closer, hits him hard. 

“Seven years? I can't do another seven years. I can't...,” Wes trails off and Travis can feel the intensity of his stare burning into the side of his head. His eyes stay on an abstract painting across from the couch obviously meant to give some color to the otherwise bland, utilitarian décor. 

Travis knows he did the right thing seven years ago, but in this moment, he's at a loss. 

“Then what do you want to do?” Travis wishes he sounded angrier, less on edge. 

“I'm sorry.” 

It's Wes that touches first. Strokes his hand down Travis thigh. The afternoon encounter notwithstanding, there isn't anything sexual in the touch. Travis knows it for what it is. A gentling. 

Shifting his attention from the painting he's decided is now ugly as sin, Travis looks directly at Wes. He resists a small urge to lean away, to put more space between their faces. He can see the sorry. Something he rarely saw when they were together. Then, it was more righteous indignation. Of their own will his eyes flutter closed. Now that a period has been put to the time since they were last together, Travis is not sure he can do that time again either. Not in the same way. 

“Long distance?” 

His eyes fly open, blue on blue. “What, you drop into town every few months for some sex over a desk.”

“No Travis, God no. That was -”

“Then what Wes? What? You're not giving up the Feds. I can see that on your face, in your posture at the crime scene this afternoon. You're in your element. And my business is doing really well. It's right in a way that even the PD, as great as it was, wasn't. My brothers and sisters, help out, their kids, my nieces and nephews. It feels like real roots. Like I'm building something that will last.”

“I get that,” Wes says quietly.

Wes traces a finger down the warm skin of Travis' arm. Skin that use to belong to him. All that Travis is was his. The bad and the good. He doesn't think it's hit him until this moment how badly they've managed to screw things up. How badly he screwed things up. Seven years ago, he could see that Travis was making an effort, making changes. He'd greeted that truth with fear. He can't bear to let go now. 

They're both smart guys, but this might be too big for them. His fingers trail down until they join with Travis'. He doesn't remember them ever doing this, this simple, quiet thing.

“Christ, Wes.” Travis says softly as his fingers tighten around his ex's. 

They sit like that on the couch for a long time. 

 

**Coda**

Travis admits to himself that he's nervous. He's never done anything quite like this before. Never been in a situation like this before. He reaches for Wes' bag as soon as the other man comes through the doors to baggage claim. It's not real luggage exactly, a duffel, but heavy enough to suggest probably more clothes than Wes will ever actually need for his three day weekend in LA. 

They have agreed that the sex between them was never what was broken, that isn't what this weekend is about. Sex hasn't been explicitly taken off the table, but it's not a priority. Its taken them six months between cases and other obligations to finally find a weekend that worked for both of them. So yes, Travis is nervous. A lot is riding on the next three days.

 

Dinner is good. In the six months it took to find the right block of time, they talked. Without a case between them, without the job between them, without Dr. Ryan facilitating. They talked about how they knew each other, but hadn't spent time really getting to know each other apart from work. Work had let them hide. Tonight they were supposed to go out on a date. Wes had made a reservation at a good restaurant on the Westside, thenTravis canceled it without telling him. 

It's not until he drops Wes off at his hotel, he drops that tidbit.

“I changed the reservation.” 

Crinkles dent the other man's forehead while he chooses his words. Travis waits for him to process through without giving him a hard time for it. “What's the new time?”

“New time, new place.” The furrows get so deep Travis can't help but laugh. “Come to my house Wes. We're doing homecooked tonight at eight.” And like that Wes breaks into a full, open smile. 

Homecooked hadn't necessarily meant Traviscooked. Putting the meal together had been a bit of a family project.

Travis waits patiently as Wes docks his phone, fiddles with it for a few seconds. Marks expects to hear some jazz thing from the forties he won't recognize or like. Something that he'll put up with because obviously it's meant to build on the romantic spirit of the dinner. It had been romantic. Sweetly, genuinely so. Another new experience. 

At first it starts out goofy. The song that unexpectedly comes through the speakers is so on the nose that Travis is hit with a fit of the giggles. Which Wes catches as he opens his arms to Travis, They take turns dipping each other as low as they can. Not exactly in sync with the music. Wes nearly drops Travis on his ass before making a last minute save that's so smooth Travis can't help but grin into a kiss. 

With the same sync they had as partners when things were going well, their moods change simultaneously. _There's nothing like you and I._ Travis' hand cups the back of Wes' head. Wes' hands slides under Travis' shirt anchoring at his waist. Their swaying together locks into the real rhythm of the song. They are slow dancing for real.

“Sade, huh,” Travis murmurs against his partner's temple. “I've expanded my horizons,” Wes murmurs back. 

_I love you,_ Travis thinks. 

It's never really gone away. Obviously, a seven year separation is no match against having fallen in love with Wes Mitchell. Even now though, he's not ready to say it out loud. Has never said it out loud to anyone. Their actions speak it on both sides, on this willingness to try, really try again. The words out loud would seal something with the potential to kill him if things go bad again.

The song auto repeats. Wes tightens his hold, inhaling everything that is his partner. Later, maybe in a week, Wes will tell Travis about his leave of absence. It had turned out to be such a bitch, taken so long for them to carve out this weekend that Wes had made a decision. Working his ass off for the last seven years, taking virtually no time off, coupled with an enviable solve rate has garnered him a fair amount of good will and accrued leave. So he'll wait a few days, then tell Travis about the condo he's rented in Santa Monica. If that information is well received, the ring he bought might be as well. If it isn't, seven years with the FBI has honed his tenacity. It won't be another seven years before he's able to hold Travis like this. Able to get back what he gave away. 

“I love you,” he says out loud as he presses his lips to Travis' temple.

fin


End file.
